These two titans of their respective industries could end up as partners.Photo: Los Angeles Lakers/Paramount Pictures

The next time Jason Voorhees rises from the grave, it might be because of basketball superstar LeBron James.

Since moving to the Los Angeles Lakers, James and his SpringHill Entertainment company have been getting their hands on a lot of movie and TV projects. The most famous of course is Space Jam 2, but there have been documentaries, TV shows, and much more. Now, though, according to Bloody Disgusting, James and his team are looking to bringing back the Friday the 13thfranchisealong with Vertigo Entertainment.

Advertisement

That sounds like a wild, made-up rumor, but it isn’t. Deadline confirmed the story reported first by the horror site and James has long been open about his love for Jason. (Check out tweets like this and photos like this.) It’s the kind of project, especially after the massive opening weekendHalloween just had, multiple companies could be, and probably should be, chasing. io9 has contacted SpringHill for potential comment and will update if it responds.

The problem with all this is that the Friday the 13th franchise has been marred in legal trouble for several years now. That mess all but canceled a long-in-development sequel to the 2009 reboot; in recent weeks, a judge settled with original screenwriter Victor Miller, who was suing producers over his claim to the franchise. (It gets even messier when you realize Jason as we all know him wasn’t even in the original movie that Miller wrote.) This all could be over soon, though, as producers now have mere days to file an appeal to that decision. As for what happens after that, we don’t know. Who owns the rights to what pieces of the franchise? How many producers will get a taste? The whole thing is even more complicated than the Jason canon.

But maybe LeBron James changes that. Maybe his camp’s interest gives everyone involved some new hope. We don’t rightfully know. What we do know is, if everything works out, James could become a producer on a new Friday the 13th movie—and that would be an impressive feather in his already impressive cap.